While 2023 was a “banner year” for general aviation, how will the industry handle the many challenges it faces in 2024?
Flight training is getting safer
While flight training is getting safer according to an updated report from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Air Safety Institute, there is still “plenty of work to do, particularly in mitigating the risk of loss of control in flight.”
A banner year for general aviation
“For the first time in more than a decade, the general aviation manufacturing industry has eclipsed 4,000 aircraft delivered,” officials with the General Aviation Manufacturers Association report.
A crowded stage at Oshkosh
When Charles Stites, executive director of Able Flight, sent out his latest press release, he couldn’t help but boast about the non-profit’s latest milestone: “With 10 new scholarships, it looks like it will be a crowded stage for the wings pinning ceremony at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in July!”
Chasing airplanes
Robert Hobbelman’s hobby of plane spotting has taken him all over the world, and the adventure continues as he attempts something impossible: To see every plane ever manufactured.
Creating the Tiny Stearman
What do you do when you want a Stearman but can’t afford one? You create your own Tiny Stearman, like Chris Hiatt did from his Baby Great Lakes.
General aviation airports suffer from costly mismanagement
In his study of 236 general aviation airports in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, Michael Jones found “dozens of examples of politicians making perfectly logical decisions which were completely wrong for an airport.”
Looks like an egg, flies like a rocket
Richard Hodge, the force behind the YouTube channel Aircraft Adventures, which is for “those who tirelessly dig for the obscure, quaint, or downright bizarre in the aviation world,” recently posted a video about the tiny egg-shaped Questair Venture, designed by Jim Griswold, who designed the Piper Malibu and worked with Cirrus in later years.
The pilot population is getting younger
The average age of a pilot who holds a medical certificate is 39.6 years.